The Pearl reveals the bad effect of wealth. The pearl which symbolizes prosperity is the cause of harsh disagreement between people. The pearl is the cause of
wealthy peoples selfishness and heartlessness toward poor people. Through the
informative language that Steinbeck employs in The Pearl, Steinbeck takes the reader along to predict the misfortune that an extreme materialistic behavior is
going to cause for Kinos family in The Pearl. In this research we would like to investigate how the language features
used in The Pearl successfully creates an artistic piece of writing as well as supporting the main messages of the writer. Yet, this research is not going to give
a comprehensive picture of John Steinbeck’s writing style in general as it is only based on one piece of writing.
In the analysis, Stylistics will be applied as the major theory. Stylistic analysis is part of both linguistic and literary studies. It is practised as a way of
interpreting the possible meanings in a literary work. It is also generally believed that the process of analysis will reveal the good qualities of the writing.
This literary stylistic analysis is significant to make us have a deeper understanding of how a writer achieves the literary and artistic effects through
language. By reading this analysis, it is hoped that we appreciate not only the writer’s brilliant ideas, but also how the ideas are expressed. It is also hoped that
the analysis can help other readers to be able to respond to a literary work in a more appreciative way by observing its language.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The problems to analyze in this research are formulated as follows: 1.
What are the stylistic categories which John Steinbeck uses in The Pearl? 2
2. How do these stylistic categories reveal John Steinbeck’s messages in The
Pearl?
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purposes of this analysis are as follows: 1.
To show and explain the stylistic categories that John Steinbeck uses in The Pearl.
2. To find out how the stylistic categories reveal John Steinbeck’s messages
in The Pearl.
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CHAPTER TWO
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Stylistics is a study of interpretation of texts from a linguistic perspective. It is a study of the use of elements of language style, such as figures of speech, in
a particular context. Stylistics explores how readers interact with language of texts, which are mainly literary texts, in order to explain how readers understand
and are affected by the texts when they read them. Leech 38 According to Geoffrey Leech, “Stylistics, simply defined as the linguistic
study of style, is rarely undertaken for its own sake, simply as an exercise in describing what use is made of language” 13. Stylistics shows how authors
choose to express themselves in their own particular way. In other words, it shows the relation between language and its artistic function. Literary stylistics has the
goal of relating the critic’s concern of aesthetic appreciation with the linguist’s concern of linguistic description. Linguistic description can be used in analyzing
the style of a literary text. Leech 39 The categories are placed under four general headings: lexical categories,
grammatical categories, figures of speech, and cohesion and context. Leech 75 Leech also stated that “there is no harm in mixing categories” 75 since the
purpose of the analysis is heuristic.
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The first stylistic category is lexical categories, which are word classes that are part of the lexicon. It concerns with the question whether the vocabulary used
is simple or complex; formal or colloquial; descriptive or evaluative; general or
specific; whether the nouns used are abstract or concrete; what use is made of proper names and collective names; whether the adjectives are frequent; whether
the adjectives refer to physical or psychological or visual or auditory or colour or
referential or emotive or evaluative attributes; whether the verbs carry an
important part of the meaning; whether they are stative or dynamic; whether the
adverbs are frequent; what semantic functions the adverbs perform, and so on.
Leech 75 The second stylistic category is grammatical categories, which involve
sentence types, sentence complexity, clause types, clause structure, noun phrases, verb phrases, other phrase types, and minor word classes such as prepositions,
conjunctions, pronouns, determiners, auxiliaries, interjections. Leech 77-78 The third stylistic category is figures of speech, in which it is considered
how linguistic features are foregrounded “…by virtue of departing in some way from general norms of communication by means of the language code” Leech
78. Leech mentions that exploitation of regularities of formal patterning, or of deviation from the linguistic code are the basic forms of figures of speech,
including the traditional figures of speech, such as schemes and tropes. Figures of speech are ways of using words to add interest to what the writer is writing and
also to awaken the imagination of the reader. Leech 78 The last stylistic category is context and cohesion. Cohesion is the term
given to those language features which do the job that can cover a wide range of
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linguistic and stylistic devices in the text. Context can be internal or external. External context might include very broad cultural and historical information
about the author, the period of writing, etc. External context will also, like internal context, be concerned with textual relation. Leech 79
In this research, the stylistic categories which will be focused on are the lexical and grammatical categories and figures of speech. In particular, in the
lexical categories there is the significant use of adjectives and verbs, which will be based on Halliday’s transitivity, while in the grammatical categories, the focus of
analysis will be on the repetitive use of the conjunction “and”. The figures of speech analyzed will be the traditional ones, namely the metaphor, simile, and
hyperbole. Some further necessary explanation of the linguistic features mentioned earlier will be given below.
2.1 Halliday’s Transitivity
